The 27,058-square foot store is the second outpost for the specialty grocer in Jefferson County and its 27th overall in Colorado, according to the Sprouts website. Another Sprouts is scheduled to open in August in Denver at 197 E. Mississippi Ave.

Customers walk into the new Chrome Industries store at 15th and Market streets on June 22. (Seth McConnell/The Denver Post)

After leaving for San Francisco in 2002, Chrome Industries is re-establishing a Colorado presence, in the form of a retail store in downtown Denver.

Chrome Industries, maker of messenger bags, backpacks and urban cycling apparel, opened the doors of its first Colorado retail “hub” on June 12 at 1331 15th St., according to its Facebook page.

A grand opening celebration is planned for 7-11 p.m. Friday, with local beer, live screen-printing by Indy Ink, a local art exhibit, live music and a bike race to raise money for the 2015 North American Cycle Courier Championships, which will be held in Denver in September.

Chrome, with its signature buckle straps on bags, was established in Boulder in 1995 and moved to Denver shortly thereafter, according to a news release. The urban gear brand relocated to California in 2002 and has retail stores in San Francisco; New York; Chicago; Portland, Ore.; Seattle; and Minneapolis.

Community solar gardens are projected to grow five-fold by 2020, adding another 1.8 gigawatts of facilities, according to a report by GTM Research.

Through the end of 2014, 66 megawatts of solar gardens were installed, and over the next two years, four states – Colorado, California, Massachusetts and Minnesota – will install the majority of community solar.

The four states will serve as the “core driver” for the market with more than 80 percent of the installations over the next two years, according to the Boston-based green energy marketing and consulting firm.

Twenty-four states have at least one community solar project online, and 20 states have or are in the process of enacting community solar legislation. GTM Research identified 29 developers that are actively working on community solar projects.

Still, the two Colorado-based companies –- Clean Energy Collective and SunShare –- account for 32 percent of the operating community solar gardens. “Clean Energy Collective and SunShare provide proof of concept,” said Cory Honeyman, a GTM Research solar analyst. “They showed it could be done and is scalable.”

That is why both Louisville-based Clean Energy Collective, or CEC, and Denver-based SunShare have attracted partners and financial backing.Read more…

Al White was named director of the Colorado Tourism Office in 2011. (Lynn Bartels/The Denver Post)

His passion for Colorado tourism burns so bright they call him the Reverend White. And the reverend has left the building. Actually, he’s just moving to a bigger office.

Al White, a former Colorado congressman and senator who has led the Colorado Tourism Office since 2011, is taking on a new role as senior advisor to the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade.

A former ski shop owner in Winter Park, White’s tenure as Colorado’s top tourism champion has seen record growth in the state’s travel industry. The state’s “Come To Life” ad campaign has lured record numbers of spendthrift tourists, filling local and state tax coffers – and small businesses throughout the state – with record harvests. In 2013, Colorado hosted 64.6 million visitors who spent $17.3 billion, generating $976 million in state, regional and local taxes. Those numbers grew in 2014, setting yet another record. White, in one of his last moments as The Reverend, will announce 2014 tourism results next week.

In July White will help guide the OEDIT, which oversees the tourism office, Colorado’s brand and marketing, the new Outdoor Recreation Industry Office and economic legislative policy.

Fiona Arnold, the executive director of the OEDIT said White’s “knowledge and expertise” will further the office’s mission to grow the state’s economy.
“He has been especially invaluable to me and I’ve relied on his advice and counsel in this new position, so I am thrilled with his expanded role within OEDIT,” Arnold said in a statement.

White said he was excited to help shepherd OEDIT.
“There is ample opportunity to continue improving our economy, and I am pleased that my counsel will help this endeavor,” he said in a statement.

But don’t worry, he said, the tourism trumpeting isn’t about to end.

“The reverend is still going to be in the building and preaching the gospel of tourism to a broader audience,” he said.

A family shops at the King Soopers store in Commerce City in 2014. (Cyrus McCrimmon/Denver Post file photo)

King Soopers customers along the Front Range can now get organic and natural products shipped straight to their doorsteps, the grocery chain announced Thursday.

A new e-commerce website, kingsoopers.com/livenaturally, went live June 10 and offers more than 36,000 items for direct-to-home shipping, including supplements, natural body care and cleaning supplies, pet food and non-perishable products from the chain’s Simple Truth line.

“It might not be an item that we carry on our shelves every day in every store location, but we can get it to you in two days,” King Soopers spokeswoman Kelli McGannon said.

Chicago counts for nine of the top ten messy airline routes in the U.S. Colorado has two. (Graphic via WSJ)

Where are the nation’s biggest air travel trouble spots? The Wall Street Journal today debuted a neat little searchable widget to answer that question. And, as it turns out, and Colorado has two in the top ten.

Chicago-based United Airlines will now fly directly from Denver to Liberia and San Jose, Costa Rica, starting Dec. 18.

Right now, United is taking reservations for flights on weekends between Dec. 18 and April 30. The Costa Rican cities are the two most-in-demand Central American destinations from Denver, which drove the airline’s decision to add the flights, spokeswoman Mary Ryan said.

The new routes provide a way for flyers from more than 40 locations to reach to the Central American country by connecting through Denver, according to United.

Everyone loves celebrating birthdays, and YouTube is no exception. As part of their 10-year anniversary, the Google-owned video behemoth compiled top videos, including the top ads that have made an appearance on the web channel.

This clever Turkish Airlines ad, starring L.A. Lakers shooting guard Kobe Bryant and Barça football star Lionel Messi engaged in a selfie war around the globe, has been awarded the “Your Favorite” YouTube ad of the past decade.

The spot, which had more than 25 million views within its first three days online, was developed by Boulder-based Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

YouTube analyzed the popularity of videos by tallying “votes” of consumer views while also asking advertisers, marketers and other professionals to weigh in. They learned four of 2014’s top trending videos were created by advertisers.

Turkish Airlines is seeing remarkable growth in recent years. On May 15, the airline announced a record $153 million first-quarter 2015 profit, a capacity increase of 9.4 percent (in available seat km) over the same time last year, and a total passenger increase of 6.5 percent, according to a statement.

Turkish Airlines serves 271 destinations in 109 countries with a fleet of 274 aircraft, according to their website.

“Solar is really a good deal for cities,” said John Farrell, the institute’s director of “democratic energy” and a co-author of the report.

The study calculates that there are enough municipal sites to hold 5,000 megawatts of solar arrays – equal to about a quarter of all the solar capacity in the county at the end of 2014.

Cities that have moved into municipal solar are already saving money. The 16 megawatts of solar installed by New Bedford, Mass is saving $6 million to $7 million a year on electricity. Lancaster, California, a city of 159,000, is saving about $450,000 a year.

Denver was second among cities in the report with 14 megawatts of installations, right behind New Bedford, although the researchers said they couldn’t get firm numbers on savings from the city.

The largest installations are at Denver International Airport, where 10 megawatts have been installed in four arrays with a total of 42,358 individual solar panels. The four installations can generate enough electricity to meet the needs of about 2,595 typical Denver-area homes each year.Read more…

Laura Keeney writes about aerospace and airlines for The Post. When she's not at work, you can usually find her taking in live music, reading voraciously, or doing something science-related and nerdy. She also loves The Clash ... a lot.

Emilie Rusch covers retail and commercial real estate for The Post. A Wisconsin native and Mizzou graduate, she moved to Colorado in 2012. Before that, she worked at a small daily newspaper in South Dakota. It's the one with Mount Rushmore.